One Green Thing: Just plain miscellaneous …

Whether you were “green” before the color was fashionable or whether you’re just ready to find the “shade” that works best for you, here’s information about doing just “one green thing.”

Get your car ready for winter:

• Wipe ordinary car wax on your headlights. The water repellent in it will prevent the messy mixtures of winter from sticking to your lights (and who doesn’t have at least one container of car wax lying around?).

• You can help prevent your car doors from freezing shut by rubbing some cooking oil on the rubber seals around car doors — the water doesn’t go into the rubber.

• When locks are frozen, use hand sanitizer on the key and the lock.

• Replace a missing gas cap to avoid gas vaporizing into the air.

Won’t be long before we file income tax reports. Have you checked your home for the possibility of improvement projects that qualify for tax credits? Visit the website that follows, or talk to your tax person: http://www.energystar.gov/index.cfm?c=tax_credits.tx_index. These could help you do something you were going to do anyway and give you some tax relief. We can all use some of that.

Following are some ideas on using beer:

• Fertilize your indoor plants. Use flat beer, just a small amount, at the base of the plant.

• Loosen rusty bolts. The acids in beer may dissolve enough rust to help you get them loose.

• You can polish brass pots with a soft cloth and gentle rubbing of the beer onto the pot. Let it sit for a while, then rinse and dry with another cloth. Beer works wonders on many metals.

Get ready for the cold and sniffles season: find Grandma or Grandpa’s handkerchiefs and save a tree (and the cost of tissues).